Chapter 7

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

“Shh—” Xi Ping quickly pulled his horse, which had suddenly gone mad, to a halt.

The wind raised by the horse knocked down the “husband’s funeral oration” on the ancient pagoda tree next to them. The ragged paper covered Xi Ping’s face, stinking. With one hand, he kept a tight hold on the horse; with the other, he tore away the rotting paper and saw the masterpiece on it. It said:

Beauties fill the Blissful Village, lithe forms lying on display.

Next year when the moss grows green, all their suitors here will play.

“Ugh!” said Xi Ping.

The horse shot forward another few zhang and nearly stepped on someone’s burial mound. It raised its front hooves high. With its big, fearful eyes staring, it whinnied.

Sadly, its master didn’t know its mind. He didn’t understand what it meant and even kicked it.

“Stupid thing, where are you running off to!”

The terrain of the Blissful Village wasn’t complicated. There was a paved road dug out around the graves where carriages could pass. Within were numerous little dirt roads made by the trampling of the “poets” who came to pay their respects to the beautiful souls.

Jiangli’s carriage wasn’t stopped outside, so it must have gone into the graveyard. If a carriage went in, it could only travel along the paved road. If he went along the paved road, he was sure to run into them. As Xi Ping thought this, he forced his horse into a trot, hitting and cursing.

But as they trotted, he noticed that something was wrong.

Was the Blissful Village…this big?

In Xi Ping’s memory, the big road and little roads put together wouldn’t take more than three ke to stroll around on foot. But he had trotted on horseback for ages without even coming to the end of the paved road—he couldn’t even find the entrance where he had come in.

It was nearly dark, and the fog was growing thicker and thicker. Xi Ping had the impression that something had broken off the beginning and end of this paved road and turned it into an endless loop. Looking around, the weathered ancient pagoda trees and ancient cypresses all seemed to have come out of the same mold. Dense fog flowed between their branches. He could see nothing clearly past three chi away. Even the shapes of the trees were flickering shadows.

The third time he passed a branching path, Xi Ping stopped his horse and muttered, “I feel like I’ve seen this path before. What do you think?”

With its long face grim, the horse gave another sharp whinny.

Xi Ping thought about it. “Come on, let’s go have a look… Hey, I said come on!”

He was bravely advancing, but his horse was desperately retreating; it absolutely refused to budge.

Xi Ping wrestled with it for a while and truly couldn’t move the useless animal, so he had to tie the horse to a tree by the road and proclaim that at the New Year’s feast at the Marquis Manor this year, there would be “a plate set aside for it” on the table.

Then he bundled up the hem of his robe and simply stepped in.

Xi Ping had heard rumors about the “ghost labyrinth.” If he ran around blindly here, he might be running forever. Instead, he was going to go in and see what kind of amorous ghost had coveted his handsome looks and trapped him here.

Xi Ping hadn’t planned on saying out all night, and he hadn’t brought a lantern. He only had a jadeite tinderbox—he usually used it to light his grandmother’s pipe.

He shook the tinderbox and felt that it was nearly out of fuel. He depressed the spring. The Moon Plated Gold cogs turned the firesteel around for ages, like a donkey pulling a carriage, before finally warming up slightly. The flame wouldn’t pop out. Xi Ping picked up a stick and tested it, but it was too wet to catch fire, so he tossed it aside and picked his way blindly toward the depths of the thicket.

He wasn’t scared, and he didn’t care about the big and small graves lined up on either side of the path.

The thicket covered the graves so thoroughly that they never saw the light of day, burying these people who had never seen the light of day while living. From birth to death, they seemed to have simply moved from one coffin to another, always silent, and in death they remained silent in boundlessly absurd lewdness. As Xi Ping walked, he tore down the amorous verses drooping like hanged ghosts, thinking that if these ghosts were the type to go haunting, they would long ago have gone to get their revenge. They wouldn’t still be in the Blissful Village putting up with this bullshit.

Whoever had used the ghost labyrinth to lure him in probably had a grievance to report.

But all around it was still discomfortingly peaceful, and it was dark. He kept tripping. Cursing, Xi Ping groped around for a while. Then he felt he was being too irascible. It wasn’t appropriate to spit out so many “lotuses” in front of the lovely souls. So he decided to whistle a little tune to calm his mind.

His thoughts went astray, and he began to whistle the Soul Calling Melody that Wang Baochang and Dong Zhang had sung before their deaths.

The Soul Calling Melody was passed from mouth to mouth among the common people. There were many versions. It had a general outline, but the concrete details had to be filled in by the mourners themselves.

As for Mr. Yu Gan’s version of the Soul Calling Melody, never mind anything else about it, it won hands down over the others when it came to being sweet-sounding.

While Xi Ping was getting carried away with his own self-importance, all of a sudden, he found that there was an “echo” to his whistle.

He stopped at once, but the “echo” only stopped half a beat after him. Xi Ping’s scalp bristled. He put a hand on the ornamental sword at his waist.

At the same time, the person imitating his whistle realized that they had been discovered. There was a rustling in the thicket. That person was burrowing into the depths of the forest!

Despite Xi Ping’s immense boldness, his spine still went a little numb, and he instinctively wanted to run in the opposite direction.

But just then, he found that there was a sliver of lantern light piercing the fog not far ahead of him, and footsteps coming along with the lamplight, in his direction.

On one hand, there was someone…or something in the graveyard thicket imitating his whistle, and on the other hand, there was a person carrying a lantern and walking slowly. Reasonably speaking, however you looked at it, the latter seemed a little more normal. This might be a visitor to the graveyard, trapped like he was. It might be Jiangli and her driver.

But in a flash, Xi Ping still turned away and burrowed into the thicket.

His ears and eyes were naturally more acute than normal. Because he had played all kinds of instruments since he was little, he was very sensitive to sounds. In a group of dozens of musicians playing together, he could tell who was playing the wrong note. When the person imitating his whistling had moved, he could tell from the sound of their movements that they were very small and had run off in a panic when discovered.

But on the other hand, he could roughly tell the height of the person carrying the lantern from how high the lantern was off the ground. Jiangli and the old grave guard weren’t so tall, never mind the hunchbacked driver.

The paths in the woods weren’t as even as the paved road. Even Xi Ping had twisted his ankle several times. Adding in the heavy fog, even with a lantern, how could this person’s steps be so steady?

One was an unknown, the other at least sounded like they could be restrained with brute force. Xi Ping quickly considered it and decisively chose to go for the soft target.

He went into the woods at first to hide from the person carrying the lantern, but the person imitating his whistle thought that Xi Ping was chasing them and started to flee wildly. When a person was nervous, their legs would often be faster than their mind. If someone chased them, they would instinctively run; and if they ran, another person would also instinctively go after them. By the time Xi Ping realized what he was doing, he had already gone in pursuit of the sound.

He was tall and long-legged and could be considered a very good runner, but after he had chased for a while, Xi Ping began to wonder what exactly he was chasing… This thing seemed to be only half the height of a man, but it ran faster than a dog!

In spite of himself, he became apprehensive. Just what kind of demon was he chasing?

All of a sudden, Xi Ping tripped over an old root sticking up from the ground and went sprawling. He just happened to catch the fleeing shape. He seized the opportunity to brandish his sword. When he touched a body, he made a quick grab, and the two of them fell to the ground together.

Then Xi Ping got a clear look at the “thing” he had grabbed. He was shaken—

This was actually a child…a human child!

He had grabbed a little boy with his hair in two childhood knots who, standing, might not even have come up to his waist. He had two perfectly round eyes like grapes. His eyes and brows were rather far apart; he had a natural expression of surprise and confusion.

Why would a child be running around an open graveyard in the middle of the night?

Just then, Xi Ping heard the sound of a horse’s hooves hitting the ground. Before he could look in that direction, the child he was holding took a deep breath, as though about to scream.

Xi Ping held the child down and covered his mouth. Then he struggled to look out through a crack in the thick woods. Just then, a wind came and blew some of the fog away. Xi Ping squinted and saw a familiar carriage.

The driver’s figure was indistinct. His back was bent nearly into a circle—a hunchback.

Lao Zhang?

If the driver was here, where was his master Jiangli? Was she in the carriage, or somewhere nearby?

The old driver’s figure seemed to be wet from the fog. It mixed with the interlaced figures of trees in the woods, flickering, like a deformed spirit.

Before Xi Ping could get a close look, lamplight fell into his eyes. He immediately lowered his breathing and crouched closer to the ground—as he was chasing the strange child just now, he had gotten turned around in the thick woods and had accidentally circled around back to the path. The person holding the lantern was also coming here.

The heavy footsteps approached. The shape of the person carrying the lantern gradually appeared.

The newcomer, as Xi Ping had guessed, was a full eight chi tall, wrapped in a big grey cape. He calmly passed by the bushes where Xi Ping was hiding and walked toward Lao Zhang.

As soon as he came near, Lao Zhang’s horse took fright. Its front hooves seemed to leave the ground by a chi. It whinnied without stopping. Lao Zhang exclaimed and grasped the reins with one hand, forcing the horse to stay in place. The strength this must have taken was at least enough to lift several hundred jin, but it didn’t occur to Xi Ping to wonder where the old man’s strength came from—he had no attention to spare for Lao Zhang, anyway.

Curled up in the bushes, the arteries in his neck pumped fiercely, pushing all his blood out to his limbs—he had seen the face of the man carrying the lantern clearly.

The man had no skin!

The face and hands of the man carrying the lantern were red and white, blood vessels crawling over the naked flesh like spiderwebs. Xi Ping, downwind from him in the bushes, also smelled a choking scent of blood coming from him. He nearly threw up on the spot!

Watching this “demon” walk toward Jiangli’s carriage, Xi Ping’s spine instantly tensed.

Jiangli was only a frail girl, and her old driver could only count as half a person… What should he do?

Xi Ping grit his teeth and squeezed his sword with one hand. He focused, staring at the back of the man carrying the lantern. Though he had been lazy since childhood and sloppy in learning martial arts, at any rate he was a noble lordling who had picked up a bit of fancy footwork.

If that didn’t work, he was also a young and vigorous man. He had height and strength!

He deepened his breathing, considering how likely he was to kill the “demon” in one stroke if he burst out and stabbed him.

But just as he was getting ready to pounce, Jiangli’s old driver came forward quickly in greeting and called to the man carrying the lantern, “Sir, you’re here at last!”

Xi Ping narrowly stopped himself and nearly choked on a breath.

What was going on? These two knew each other?

Somewhat impatient, the old driver hurriedly asked, “It’s nearly time, have Heaven’s Design Pavilion come yet?”

The man holding the lantern sighed. “Not yet. Don’t worry, the illusion array is already in place in the forest. As soon as a cultivator bursts in, the illusion bell will ring. Don’t lose heart until the very last.”

Xi Ping didn’t understand much of their conversation, but they seemed to be waiting for Heaven’s Design Pavilion… Why?

What kind of trouble had Jiangli gotten herself into?

Seeing that the driver was well acquainted with the man holding the lantern and not afraid of him, Xi Ping hesitated a little. He thought, Could it be that it’s only his appearance that’s suboptimal, and he’s actually a good person?

The old driver sighed and wailed over and over, and the man holding the lantern consoled him again: “We received word from 18. While 32 died for the cause, everything in Jinping is going smoothly, and our people are lying in wait at the Azure Dragon Towers. That little lord has already been taken to Heaven’s Design Pavilion. The thing your Miss 50 passed to Heaven’s Design Pavilion through him must have been delivered already. As long as they aren’t completely useless, they won’t miss the clues you dropped along the way. It’s only that those paper-pushers are scared to die, so they’re probably going in circles outside the forest now.”

Xi Ping was at a loss when it came to all these 18s, 32s, and Miss 50s, but he had an idea that the “little lord taken to Heaven’s Design Pavilion” seemed to be…Xi Ping himself.

“Something the young lady passed to Heaven’s Design Pavilion through him…” What thing?

Xi Ping felt around in his clothes and thought, Could it be the piece of jade?

But he hadn’t handed it over!

Xi Ping didn’t know what role had been arranged for him in all of this, but evidently he hadn’t gone along with the script.

He was a little bewildered for a time, not knowing whether he had done something bad from good intentions, or something good from bad intentions.

Lao Zhang said, distressed, “Thank you, sir… Ah, in fact, we knew from the start that however flawless the plan was, there would be some change. 32 went on ahead last night, and my young lady has already…has already prepared herself. If we can’t grab a lackey from Heaven’s Design Pavilion to serve as an offering, she’ll use her own flesh and blood to welcome the god.”

Xi Ping: “…”

No, wait up!

These two “good people” were talking about grabbing what? Doing what?

“Brother 32 was spirited, and Miss 50 is righteous. It really makes me ashamed of my own meaningless life.” The man holding the lantern tapped his chest lightly with his fist and said heavily, “The conflagration burns on, the cry of the cicada is without end.”

Lao Zhang restrained his sobs and quietly responded in code: “Better to die in frost than to forsake one's convictions.”

“The time is nearly here. Tai Sui is about to arrive. I can delay no longer. I must go and join my companions in the array.” As the man holding the lantern spoke, he looked up at the sky.

The fog was so thick it seemed to have solidified. Who knew what he saw… Perhaps the view from lidless eyes was unusually open and clear.

“Oh, right.” After taking a few steps forward, the man holding the lantern remembered something. He turned to Lao Zhang and said, “My slave ran off somewhere. I just heard him whistling the Soul Calling Melody, somewhere over there. Now there’s no sign of him. There was a hitch when that little thing was refined. I can’t seem to tame him. If you see him, catch him for me. Don’t let him run around and get in the way of major affairs.”

Whistling…the Soul Calling Melody?

“Slave”…

“Refined”…

At these unpleasant-sounding words, Xi Ping realized something. Slowly, he lowered his gaze.

He saw the “child” whose mouth he was covering clinging to his arm with his little hands. Those hands felt strangely cold, and they were covered in coarse…wood grain and knots!

The “child” simply folded in half, then in half again. His wooden fingers retracted into his palm one by one, then began to curl up from the elbow with a creak, retracting all the way to the shoulder—in the blink of an eye, the “child” had turned from the neck down into a square wooden peg!

Xi Ping: “…”

The little monster took the opportunity to struggle. The wooden peg was very smooth. Xi Ping lost his hold and let him…it roll out of his hands.

It opened its mouth—this mouth was an awful thing. You could have shoved a living person’s head into it whole when it was opened. Inside were rows of closely packed sharp teeth like a bed of nails!

“The moon is dark, the wind is high; fitting conditions for a corpse to transform.” Just then, the man with the lantern’s voice floated over on the wind from not far away. “Tonight the ghosts of Jinping City walk. The marvel of the sight will all depend on the little lord from the Marquis Manor.”

The Marquis Manor’s young lord, on whom such “high hopes” were placed, lay not far away in a cluster of trees, having a staring contest with a head on top of a wooden peg.

The head took a deep breath and puckered its lips, ready to whistle!